Introduction
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The ISC-GEM Global Instrumental Earthquake Catalogue (1900-2012) is the result of a special effort to adapt and substantially extend and improve currently existing bulletin data of large global earthquakes (magnitude 5.5 and above) to serve the requirements of the specific user group who assess and model seismic hazard and risk. Moreover, the Catalogue has a multidisciplinary use in a wide range of other areas such as studies of global seismicity, inner structure of the Earth, tectonics, nuclear test monitoring research, rapid determination of hazard etc. This global catalogue was also designed to serve as a reference to be used for calibration purposes by those compiling regional seismicity catalogues that contain events of much smaller magnitudes. This way the catalogues prepared by other teams for different regions may contain comparable earthquake locations and magnitude parameters, especially in border regions. The Catalogue was initially funded by the GEM Foundation as part of the five Global Hazard Components and is a result of the 27 month long project ended In January 2013 (Storchak et al. 2013). This project was led by the ISC and performed by a Team of International Experts in accordance with the requirements of the Scientific Board of GEM and following recommendations of the team of IASPEI Observers. In November 2013 we started the four year Extension Project to include global earthquakes (above 5.5) that occurred after 2009 and smaller earthquakes (below 6.2-6.3) during the 1904-1959. More details are available in the Catalogue Overview and Extension Project pages. |